Nowadays, most mobile devices, also called user equipments, mobile terminals, or the like, to be used in connection with mobile communication networks—typically cellular mobile communication networks such public land mobile networks—normally require a subscriber identity module (SIM) or a universal subscriber identity module (USIM) in order to function normally.
The subscriber identity module or universal subscriber identity module may also be referred to as a universal integrated circuit card. A universal integrated circuit card (UICC) is a smart card inserted into the mobile terminal (or user equipment) and used as a user authentication module. The universal integrated circuit card may store personal information on a user and information on a mobile network operator (MNO) of a mobile service subscribed by the user. For example, the universal integrated circuit card may include an International Mobile Subscriber Identity (IMSI) to identify a user.
When the user installs the universal integrated circuit card in a user terminal or in a user equipment or also in a machine type communication device (MTC device), user authentication is automatically achieved using the information stored in the universal integrated circuit card, enabling the user to conveniently use the user equipment (or mobile device or machine type communication device). Further, when the user equipment (or mobile device or machine type communication device) is replaced, the user may install the universal integrated circuit card, detached from the user equipment, on a new user equipment, thereby conveniently changing the user equipment.
However, the requirement for the universal integrated circuit card to be replaceable has a number of drawbacks, especially related to the size of the user equipment, to the accessibility of the universal integrated circuit card within the user equipment, and the like. Therefore, embedded universal integrated circuit cards have been introduced. These embedded universal integrated circuit cards are not, or at least not easily, detachable from the hardware structure of the user equipment (or mobile terminal or machine type communication device). For example, the embedded universal integrated circuit cards are integrated or permanently connected (e.g. by soldering) to radio modules of the user equipments. Such radio modules typically provide the capabilities for physically enabling the establishment of a radio link between, on the one hand, the electronic device in question (such as the user equipment, the mobile device or the machine type communication device), and, on the other hand, a mobile communication network, typically according to one of the access technologies of mobile communication networks, such as GSM (Global System for Mobile Communication), UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunication System), LTE (Long term Evolution) and/or LTE advanced.
However, the use of embedded universal integrated circuit cards also have drawbacks such as problems associated with the initialization of the embedded universal integrated circuit card and/or with the provisioning of the embedded universal integrated circuit cards, especially in case that a mobile device needs to be used in a mobile communication network at the time of production of, e.g., a product into which the mobile device is integrated, and with the further requirement that the mobile device needs to be used later on in a different mobile communication network, i.e. a transfer of an assignment needs to be done between different mobile network operators.